A Friend in Need
by The Labris
Summary: Ginny and Draco witness and consider the life and death of Harry Potter. A friend in need is a friend in deed.


**A FRIEND IN NEED…**

~by The Labris~

* * *

One person attended the funeral of the late, great Harry James Potter. It wasn't because he died in battle and the only witness was his murderer. It wasn't because he had outlived all his former friends. And it wasn't because he had lived a life on the run either. In fact, Harry Potter committed suicide at the age of twenty-five, eight years after graduating from Hogwarts, seven years after defeating the Dark Lord Voldemort, six years after marrying his on-and-off girlfriend, Cho Chang, and five years after the untimely death of his pregnant wife and child.

Harry Potter was alone in death, as he had worked hard to make sure he was alone in life. Friendship with Harry ended for Hermione Granger the moment that slap landed on her cheek. Friendship with Harry ended for Ronald Weasley when he called Ron's sister a slag in front of the whole Weasley family. It digressed from there. Certainly he had no friends outside his wife. He lived in the country, surrounded by pictures of dead friends and family, and in a house his father's parents had owned.

It was a dreary existence – working for the Aurors by day and playing supportive shoulder for his depressed, sobbing wife by night. Not much to look forward to, too much to look back on. He had lived a whole life before twenty, and was ready to die after his wife succumbed to complications in pregnancy. Or so thought his partner in the Auror force, the only member of his funeral parade, and closest shade of a friend Harry'd had for five years – Draco Malfoy.

Draco inhaled deeply from his pale cigarette, threw the butt on the ground, and squished it thoroughly before letting the smoke from his lungs. It was a sad ending, Draco mused. He would have thought going out with a bang would have been more of Potter's style. Instead, he'd faded into work, silence, and anonymity. It would take days for the press to hear of this, and by then it wouldn't matter much to the wizarding world. Harry had all but excommunicated himself from that. He'd refused all honors, recognition, dinner invitations, job offers, and friends until he'd successfully insulted nearly every witch, wizard, and Muggle he met.

Popularity for Draco wasn't a goal anymore. Power, prestige, money – all that was no longer for him. Lucius was more of a role model than he would care to admit. He showed Draco what life was about, and Draco had learned that it certainly wasn't about power. Draco didn't want an inner peace, or a magical gateway to heaven upon death. Draco just wanted to be able to sleep – a deep, guiltless, unencumbered sleep. That would be Draco's single wish. His nights were wracked with dreams and jolts from bed. The far wall in his apartment had been blasted away countless times – dark shadows in his dreams dispelled upon waking.

_So tell me, Potter, _Draco thought to himself,_ have you found your sleep yet? Found your gilded heaven? Your inner peace?_

Draco hoped so, for that was all he could look to in death. That or hell. And if there was a hell, he would certainly find it.

"What are you doing here?"

Her voice startled him a little more than it should have. But he snorted and spat on the ground to hide his jumpiness. It kind of went along with being an Auror. He looked at the youngest Weasley with mild distaste – Potter's old flame. She was short and curvy, her ruddy hair pulled tightly into a bun at the nape of her neck. She wore all black for the occasion, her heeled shoes buckled in silver. He gazed up and down, noting black stockings, a formfitting petticoat, knee-length skirt, and black veiled hat tipped to one side.

Judging by her edgy demeanor she was rather uncomfortable being alone with him. Draco watched her shiver, pull a cigarette from a silver case, and fumble with a light. He offered her his and she took a deep, grateful-sounding inhale, blowing the smoke out of her nostrils and crossing her arms.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?"

Draco knew Ginevra Weasley was a slag. She'd been with half the boys on the school Quidditch teams, and slept herself into a starting position on the Torpedoes. She wasn't the best Chaser he'd ever seen, but she didn't deserve second string either. Weasley being a whore didn't bother him, she wasn't a bitch – or at least she didn't talk shit like others did about him. He almost respected her, after all she went through in school and with the Dark Lord during his defeat. She was a hero, just like Potter, Granger, and her older brother. But she scoffed at the rumors that flew about and held her head high through it all.

"It's right that I should hold his wake," Draco finally replied.

Ginevra exhaled again, slowly, and nodded. "Have you said anything yet?"

"What?"

She looked at him quizzically for a moment, raising an eyebrow. "You know... Something about...about Harry...and his life..."

"Oh," Draco said. "No." Looking at Harry Potter's grave, "No, I didn't think of it. I wouldn't know what to say. We weren't...very close."

There was a rather uncomfortable silence until Ginevra spoke again. "Should I...?"

"Go ahead," Draco said quickly.

Ginevra took a final drag and squished the butt on Harry Potter's tombstone. "Harry Potter... He liked to be in pain."

She paused, frowned, and concluded, "Rest, Harry. Just rest."

The next moments were marked by profound silence, and the first few drops of an early fall rain. Ginevra pealed the black veil off her face and turned up to the sky. Draco watched her suspiciously. They were good last words. True and short. He nodded and begin to walk off, deciding to take a little journey to clear his head.

"Oi! Where're you off to?" Ginevra called after him, crossing her arms and cocking her head to the side.

"A walk," Draco said, turning about and stopping as he thrust his hands into his pockets.

"It's raining," she commented, nodding to the dark clouds above.

Draco shrugged. "It's happened before."

"Wanna buy me a drink?" she asked, her deep brown eyes growing more and more appealing to him.

He stopped short and considered. They would probably go off into a dark pub, drink and talk about random shit until he walked her to her flat. They would shag shamelessly, and he would leave before she woke up in the morning. He thought this was a grand idea.

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**...IS A FRIEND INDEED.**


End file.
